Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

The Lilies

Hunting them, a man must sweat, bear
the whine of a mosquito in his ear,
grow thirsty, tired, despair perhaps
of ever finding them, walk a long way.
He must give himself over to chance,
for they live beyond prediction.
He must give himself over to patience,
for they live beyond will. He must be led
along the hill as by a prayer.
If he finds them anywhere, he will find
a few, paired on their stalks,
at ease in the air as souls in bliss.
I found them here at first without hunting,
by grace, as all beauties are first found.
I have hunted and not found them here.
Found, unfound, they breathe their light
into the mind, year after year.

Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

No matter how serene things
may be in my life,
how well things are going,
my body and soul
are two cliff peaks
from which a dream of who I can be
falls, and I must learn
to fly again each day,
or die.

Death draws respect
and fear from the living.
Death offers
no false starts. It is not
a referee with a pop-gun
at the startling
of a hundred yard dash.

I do not live to retrieve
or multiply what my father lost
or gained.

I continually find myself in the ruins
of new beginnings,
uncoiling the rope of my life
to descend ever deeper into unknown abysses,
tying my heart into a knot
round a tree or boulder,
to insure I have something that will hold me,
that will not let me fall.

My heart has many thorn-studded slits of flame
springing from the red candle jars.
My dreams flicker and twist
on the altar of this earth,
light wrestling with darkness,
light radiating into darkness,
to widen my day blue,
and all that is wax melts
in the flame-

Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

A City’s Death By Fire

After that hot gospeller has levelled all but the churched sky,
I wrote the tale by tallow of a city's death by fire;
Under a candle's eye, that smoked in tears, I
Wanted to tell, in more than wax, of faiths that were snapped like wire.
All day I walked abroad among the rubbled tales,
Shocked at each wall that stood on the street like a liar;
Loud was the bird-rocked sky, and all the clouds were bales
Torn open by looting, and white, in spite of the fire.
By the smoking sea, where Christ walked, I asked, why
Should a man wax tears, when his wooden world fails?
In town, leaves were paper, but the hills were a flock of faiths;
To a boy who walked all day, each leaf was a green breath
Rebuilding a love I thought was dead as nails,
Blessing the death and the baptism by fire.

Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

The Transfer of Allegiances

a bodhisattva poem

We’ve become like hungry ghosts
cowering inside this dark age.
May all the fortresses
that we’ve built
finally fall away.
Look!
There!
The Lords of Materialism
are busily working out their plan;
they spout their speeches of division
to make us beholden to fear again.
They make us drunk
as if on a drug
and say: “Ignore what is happening.
Go back to being numb!”
The men of my country
seem so afraid
of everything these days –
their fellow man,
and even women.
It’s like they’ve all become crazed!
But at every direction,
and in every realm,
the Vajra Bodies are spinning again.
Spinning
and spinning
spinning awake inside our cells.
We have what we need
to work with this mind
and transform any living hells.
When the branches and vines of ego
are mindfully and thoroughly pruned,
the Great Reality of Being appears
to which we become attuned.
And the Great Shining Flower that you are
is no longer choked
and finally blooms.

Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

Spirit of Place: The Great Blue Heron

Out of their loneliness for each other
two reeds, or maybe two shadows, lurch
forward and become suddenly a life
lifted from dawn or the rain. It is
the wilderness come back again, a lagoon
with our city reflected in its eye.
We live by faith in such presences.

It is a test for us, that thin
but real, undulating figure that promises,
“If you keep faith I will exist
at the edge, where your vision joins
the sunlight and the rain: heads in the light,
feet that go down in the mud where the truth is.”

Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

Then Is All Love? It Is, It Is!

Then is all Love? It is. It is!
Pure Gravity is Love, it loves to seize our feet,
It snatches souls and slows the pulse that, fleet,
Churns life throughout our blood.
Mass calls each neighborhood.
Thus Earth loves us and tugs our cuffs
And roughs our hair and keeps us here
Most dear to all its Mass.
While up above, or far below, depending on how you class and see it,
The Sun says Love, and Earth replies: So be it.
And, hurled about the Universe, transfixed
By Sun’s pure Love, our Earth strolls mixed
With other worlds that in the sling
Of Gravity are freed but kept to, circling, sing
Those songs of amity that Sun insists we make
In cyclings of round-abouting give and take.
As with the Sun and Earth, and Earth to us,
So heart to blood and blood to skin;
The merest atom, molecule or germ knows love within,
Each of the next, and clings to keep.
In soul of merest worm asleep
A kindling whisper burns as bright as Fire above,
To Man, to blood, to Earth’s grim bulk, to Sun,
To Suns beyond our Sun,
To microscopic blink, electric spark beyond that blink,
In Titan push or subterranean shove,
God says one single word that binds us each to all:
Love. Now, listen: Love. And once more listen: Love.
And, echoed:
Love.

such loveliness grew long before
the centuries of human squeeze.
now we struggle to restore
pristine rivers such as these.
where the firs and willows have grown
lovely, thick, tangled & brash,
cool, clear waters purl and drone
so baby salmon glint & flash.

Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

The Low Road

What can they do
to you? Whatever they want.
They can set you up, they can
bust your fingers, they can
burn your brain with electricity,
blur you with drugs till you
can’t walk, can’t remember, they can
take your child, wall up
your lover. They can do anything
you can’t stop them
from doing. How can you stop
them? Alone, you can fight,
you can refuse, you can
take what revenge you can
but they roll over you.

But two people fighting
back to back can cut through
a mob, a snake-dancing file
can break a cordon, an army
can meet an army.

Two people can keep each other
sane, can give support, conviction,
love, massage, hope, sex.
Three people are a delegation,
a committee, a wedge. With four
you can play bridge and start
an organization. With six
you can rent a whole house,
eat pie for dinner with no
seconds, and hold a fund raising party.
A dozen make a demonstration.
A hundred fill a hall.
A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter,
ten thousand, power and your own paper,
a hundred thousand, your own media,
ten million, your own country.

It goes on one at a time,
it starts when you care
to act, it starts when you do
it again after they said no,
it starts when you say We
and know who you mean, and each
day you mean one more.

Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

What Is Bounty Without A Beggar

What is bounty without a beggar? Generosity without a guest?
Be beggar and guest; for beauty is seeking a mirror, water is crying for a thirsty man.
Hopelessness and need are tasteful bezel for that ruby.
Your poverty is a Burak;* don't be a coffin riding on other men's shoulders.
Thank God you hadn't the means or you may have been a Pharaoh.
The prayer of Moses was, "Lord, I am in need of Thee!"
The Way of Moses is all hopelessness and need and it is the only way to God.
From when you were an infant, when has hopelessness ever failed you?
Joseph's path leads into the pit; don't flee across the chessboard of this world, for it is His game and we are checkmate! checkmate!
Hunger makes stale bread more delicious than halvah.
Your spiritual discomfort is spiritual indigestion; seek hunger and passion and need!
A mouse is a nibbler. God gave him mind in proportion to his needs.
Without need God gives nothing.
How will you impress God? You are a hundred thousand dinars in His debt!
A beggar shows his blindness and palsy,
he does not say, "Give me bread, O, people! I am a rich man with granaries and palaces!"
Bring a hundred sacks of gold and God will say, "Bring the heart."
And if you bring a dead heart carried like a coffin on your shoulder,
God will say, "O, cheat! Is this a graveyard? Bring the live heart! Bring the live heart!"
If you haven't any knowledge and opinions,
have good opinions about God. This is the way.
If you can only crawl, crawl to Him.
If you can not pray sincerely, offer your dry, hypocritical, agnostic prayer; for God in His mercy accepts bad coin.
If you have a hundred doubts of God,
make them into ninety doubts. This is the way.
O, Seeker! Though you have broken your vows a hundred times,
come again! Come again!
For God has said, “Though you are on high or in the pit consider me, for I am the Way."

Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

The Stones

I owned a slope full of stones.
Like buried pianos they lay in the ground,
shards of old sea-ledges, stumbling blocks
where the earth caught and kept them
dark, an old music mute in them
that my head keeps now I have dug them out.
I broke them where they slugged in their dark
cells, and lifted them up in pieces.
As I piled them in the light
I began their music. I heard their old lime
rouse in breath of song that has not left me.
I gave pain and weariness to their bearing out.
What bond have I made with the earth,
having worn myself against it? It is a fatal singing
I have carried with me out of that day.
The stones have given me music
that figures for me their holes in the earth
and their long lying in the dark.
They have taught me the weariness that loves the ground,
and I must prepare a fitting silence.

Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

When fascism comes, it will greet us with a smile. It will get down on its knees to pray. It will praise Main Street and Wall Street. It will cheer for the home team. It will clap from the bleachers when the uninsured are left to die on the street. It will rally on the Washington Mall. It will raise monuments to its heroes and weep for them and place bouquets at their stone feet and trace with their fingers the names engraved on the granite wall and go on sending soldiers to die in the mountains of Afghanistan, in the deserts of Iraq. It will send doves to pluck out the eyes of its enemies, having no hawks to spare.

When fascism comes, it will sit down for tea with the governor of Texas. It will pee in the mosques from California to Tennessee, chanting, "Wake up America, the enemy is here." It will sing the anthems of corporatization, privatization, demonization, monopolization. It will be interviewed, lovingly, on talk radio. It'll have talking points and a Facebook page and a disdain for big words or hard consonants. It won't bother to read. It will shred all its books. It will lambast the teachers and outlaw the unions.

When fascism comes, it will look good. It will have big hair, pressed suits, lapel pins. It will control all the channels. It will ride in on Swift Boats. It will sit on the Supreme Court. It will court us with fear. It will woo us with hope. When fascism comes, it will sell shares of itself on the stock market. It will get rich, then it will get obscenely rich, then it will stop paying taxes. It will leave us in the dust. It will kick our ass. It won't have to break a sweat to fool us twice. It will be too big to fail.

When fascism comes to America, it will enter on the winds of our silence and indifference and complacency. And on that day, one hundred thousand poets will gather. In book stores and libraries, bars and cafes, in their houses and apartments, in schools and on street corners, they will gather. In Albania, Bangladesh, Botswana, Bulgaria, Chile, China, Czech Republic, Finland, Guatemala, Hungary, Macedonia, Malawi, Qatar, crying, laughing, screaming. They will wrap the sad music of humanity in bits of word cloth and hang them, like prayers, on the tree of life.

Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

Her Roots

A strong wind
wrenched the great Madrone
from her hold in the hillside,
and when she fell
her roots,
hanging in mid-air,
gave us handholds
to lean on and safely swing
through her body
and back onto the trail.

Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

Covered In Birds

for Bill Horvitz 1947 to 2017

Once our hands were small flightless birds
longing only for the recession of gravity, the wings
of angels. Pressed together, though they did not rise
or raise us up as flapping might, in prayer
they gave off light.

Once I dreamed the two long melancholy notes
of the song sparrow, and sang them back
and dreamed of flight, my plumes open
to sweep the moon that rose above dark hills
a great distance inhabited by sadness

I dreamed the birds, all the birds.
I dreamed crow, those missives of night, those
morning stars erased, whose message remained
a mystery held in the shimmer of feathers in sun
so black they became pure light.

Raptor, too, could seem the source.
Golden Eagle, a peach-white river of flight across fog,
a struck match igniting air. Hawk
was the highest leaf on the tree
and by night became fire.

I dreamed rising and rising from the marsh reeds,
an iridescence shedding water without thought.
I dreamed the heron’s mincing. I dreamed the birds

and saw a gust of gulls that became the horizon –
rising and rising without what we know as thought.
I heard a lullaby and wondered
that the little seed-eater had given Brahms his first notes.

I dreamed mocking bird sang to nourish the flowers
with longing, opening and arising from solitude until
they blossomed into pure joy.

Once I dreamed the birds, all the birds, showed me how
their up carries the weight of light. Opening and rising,
I saw a puff of smoke out over the fields, a crucible
of starlings, open sky, the churn and fall and tumble,
their swoop of flight clear as script I could almost decipher.

I dreamed of all the birds, and vultures came
flying before the scythe of the sun, hard copper
beaks, brown feathers prayer flags fluttering
over my bones.

Rising and arising below clouds whose weight
they alone know, I dreamed the birds,
all the birds I could not name came down,
calling me by the name I had forgotten.

The birds, all the birds came down
and carried me away. In their flight
I read the indecipherable script of the gods.
Peace it said, and as I knew it, the word vanished
in their turning against the wind.

Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

CALL FOR ENTRIES: The History of Sonoma CountyA Poetry Contest for Adults and YouthDeadline for entry May 1, 2017

SCA announces a poetry contest, entitled "The History of Sonoma County" which invites local writers to submit poems about the history of Sonoma County. Poems selected from this contest will be displayed at Sebastopol Center for the Arts and winners will be invited to attend and read their winning poem at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts on June 10. The contest juror is Sonoma County Poet Laureate, Iris Jamahl Dunkle. Dunkle is the author of two poetry collections, Gold Passage (2013) and There's a Ghost in this Machine of Air (2015).

The entry deadline is Monday, May 1, 2017. Youth, teens and adults are invited to submit their work and may submit up to three entries per contestant. The fee for adults is $8 for members of the Sebastopol Center for the Arts, $10 for non-members, and $5 for youth entries age 18 and under. For complete contest guidelines visit History of Sonoma County Poetry Contest or visit the Center's website at www.sebarts.org or email a request to [email protected],

Sebastopol Center for the Arts presents
The History of Sonoma County
A Poetry Contest for Adults and Youth
Guidelines
Deadline for Entry: May 1, 2017

Awards:
· One juror will select the winning entries.
· Three Winners will be selected in each of the following categories: Youth (K-5), Junior High (6-8), High School (9-12), Adult
· Winners will read their poems at a reception June 10, 7:30pm,
· Winning entries will be displayed at SCA
· First place winners in all categories will each be awarded a $50 prize, Second place winners will receive a $25 prize and Third place winner will receive a $15 prize.
· Winning entries may be published in SCA's "QuARTerly" and on the website.

Entry Guidelines:
· Entries are online only to be uploaded at: History of Sonoma County Poetry Contest (or https://form.jotformpro.com/70865922357970)
· All entries must be original, unpublished, and not previously exhibited or read at SCA.
· All entries must be submitted in a font no smaller than 12 pt. Times New Roman (or equivalent).
· Each entry must be submitted in a Word Doc or PDF file, on a single 8½ x 11" page, with margins no less than 1 inch around.
· Writers may submit a maximum of 3 entries.
· Writers must submit two copies of each entry, one blind copy (without any author identification for judging), and a second copy identifying the author and city of residency for display. Each entry must be named as follows:lastname.firstname.1namedcopy and lastname.firstname.noname (for the copy without a name.) For example:
o Smith.Amy.1name and Smith.Amy.1noname
o Smith.Amy.2name and Smith.Amy.2noname
o Smith.Amy.3name and Smith.Amy.3noname
· Due to volume considerations, a literary panel may prescreen entries.

Deadlines & Fees:
Entries must be submitted online by May 1, 2017.
Sebastopol Center for the Arts members: $8 per entry (membership is $40 annually).
Non-members: $10 per entry.
Youth age 18 and under $5 per entry.
· Winners will be notified by May 25.

Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

The Things That Return

I've been down this road a time or two. I've seen the green
grass and the rabbits running and the deer
coming down from the hills to eat the last of the garden's harvest.
I've trained my eyes to catch the gold of sunset,
the silver moon rising, (the silver moon) rising over dry grass
the dry grasses and the leaves that swirl in gusts of surprise
when the tired stars open their eyes wide and dream in 4/4 time.
I've seen the frost slip in without so much as a peep
and leave us wondering where the warm days have fled,
where the warm nights have hunkered down beneath the earth.
Beneath the earth to wait out another winter.
I have closed my eyes and wondered too where the days have gone,
how the days and the nights and the stars of my dreams have blinked out
and left me standing here before that night as black
as the waiting shadow of death - inscrutable as my lover's eyes
the day he said he needed to leave because it was just too hard.
I've waited thinking everything comes around, everything
revolves like the sun and the moon and the tiny round seeds
of the dandelion that rise each spring in my morning garden.
But some things go and never come back.
My darling children's rooms stand empty still.
Empty of them and their yarn tied braids and their lithe
moon spirit bodies shining in their beds at midnight.
And no turnings of the moon's bright face smiling through
veiled windows bring back the tiny fingers and toes,
the endless songs of honeyed childhood soprano.
My love has not returned, not come round through the eternal
revolving door of love's spring scent blossoming pink on cherry boughs.
The things that return it seems are the truths that ring round our cabin doors
ring round our frost-pained windows with each new season of life.
Not the personal grasping for yesterday's love that lies darkening
the fallen leaf, but fresh new petals, a different shade of rose,
a silver hand opening that leads fall toward winter -
that sometimes startles with its clarity as the crisp cold descends,
as the bright leaves flee before it toward their dark beds.

Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

The Thing Is

to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you've held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.

Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

No monument stands over Babi Yar.
A steep cliff only, like the rudest headstone.
I am afraid.
Today, I am as old
As the entire Jewish race itself.

I see myself an ancient Israelite.
I wander o’er the roads of ancient Egypt
And here, upon the cross, I perish, tortured
And even now, I bear the marks of nails.

It seems to me that Dreyfus is myself.
The Philistines betrayed me – and now judge.
I’m in a cage. Surrounded and trapped,
I’m persecuted, spat on, slandered, and
The dainty dollies in their Brussels frills
Squeal, as they stab umbrellas at my face.

I see myself a boy in Belostok
Blood spills, and runs upon the floors,
The chiefs of bar and pub rage unimpeded
And reek of vodka and of onion, half and half.

I’m thrown back by a boot, I have no strength left,
In vain I beg the rabble of pogrom,
To jeers of “Kill the Jews, and save our Russia!”
My mother’s being beaten by a clerk.

O, Russia of my heart, I know that you
Are international, by inner nature.
But often those whose hands are steeped in filth
Abused your purest name, in name of hatred.

I know the kindness of my native land.
How vile, that without the slightest quiver
The antisemites have proclaimed themselves
The “Union of the Russian People!”

It seems to me that I am Anna Frank,
Transparent, as the thinnest branch in April,
And I’m in love, and have no need of phrases,
But only that we gaze into each other’s eyes.
How little one can see, or even sense!
Leaves are forbidden, so is sky,
But much is still allowed – very gently
In darkened rooms each other to embrace.

Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

You are cordially invited to join us this coming Sunday afternoon from 2:00 to 4:00 at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts in a celebration of National Poetry Month. Your friends and neighbors will be sharing their favorite poems. Admission is free.

Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

Prayer For April

As April begins
"April is a generous month", she said
‘’Generous rain, light singing birds’’.
Even a mean heart acknowledges the bond
Linking grass to clouds,
Linking what we know of here
To the blue tingling world of beyond,
I’ve seen mean hearts turn generous
So why should I limit myself to being
Only what I think I know,
When I might dream of another me?
The year is taking shape.
So am I.
I think I’ll go for a stroll with hope.
When I walk through the April light I see
A gentle twig is more durable
Than a stubborn tree.

Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

You enter life a ship laden with meaning, purpose and
gifts
sent to be delivered to a hungry world,
and as much as the world needs your cargo,
you need to give it away.

Everything depends on this.
But the world forgets its needs,
and you forget your mission, and
the ancestral maps used to guide you
have become faded scrawls on the parchment of dead
Pharaohs.

The cargo weighs you heavy the longer it is held.
Spoilage becomes a risk.
The ship sputters from port to port and at each you
ask:
"Is this the way?"
But the way cannot be found without knowing the cargo,
and the cargo cannot be known without recognizing
there is a way.

It is simply this:
You have gifts.
The world needs your gifts.
You must deliver them.
The world may not know it is starving,
but the hungry know,
and they will find you
when you discover your cargo
and start to give it away.

Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

Aftermath

Have you forgotten yet?...
For the world's events have rumbled on since those gagged days,
Like traffic checked while at the crossing of city-ways:
And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flow
Like clouds in the lit heaven of life; and you're a man reprieved to go,
Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy to spare.
But the past is just the same--and War's a bloody game...
Have you forgotten yet?...
Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you'll never forget.

Do you remember the dark months you held the sector at Mametz--
The nights you watched and wired and dug and piled sandbags on parapets?
Do you remember the rats; and the stench
Of corpses rotting in front of the front-line trench--
And dawn coming, dirty-white, and chill with a hopeless rain?
Do you ever stop and ask, 'Is it all going to happen again?'

Do you remember that hour of din before the attack--
And the anger, the blind compassion that seized and shook you then
As you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of your men?
Do you remember the stretcher-cases lurching back
With dying eyes and lolling heads--those ashen-grey
Masks of the lads who once were keen and kind and gay?

Have you forgotten yet?...
Look up, and swear by the green of the spring that you’ll never forget.

Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

Celebration
Brilliant, this day—a young virtuoso of a day.
Morning shadows cut by sharpest scissors,
deft hands. And every prodigy of green—
whether it's ferns or lichen or needles
or impatient points of bud on spindly bushes—
greener than ever before.
And the way the conifers
hold new cones to the light for blessing,
a festive rite, and sing the oceanic chant the wind
transcribes for them!
A day that shines in the cold
like a first-prize brass band swinging along the street
of a coal-dusty village, wholly at odds
with the claims of reasonable gloom.
- Denise Levertov